Lisa Cholodenko Rounds Up ‘November Criminals’

That Lisa Cholodenko knows how to keep herself busy. Along with writing an HBO version of her Best Picture nominee The Kids Are All Right, we’ve semi-recently reported that she’d be helmingAlexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day for Steve Carell, The Abstinence Teacher, and a Reese Witherspoon-starrer possibly titled Wild. Now, there’s something else.

TheWrap tells us about the picture, November Criminals, which is set up at Indian Paintbrush and, no less, has a screenplay from Steven Knight (Eastern Promises) to its credit. In said screenplay, which I’d guess is of the thriller mold, a student living in Washington, D.C. delves into the city’s seedier corners in an attempt “to uncover the mystery surrounding the death of a fellow student.” ($10 says the friend is a young girl murdered by some senator with a prurient edge. Count on it.)

That’s outside the typical bounds of Cholodenko‘s relationship dramas — not that there can’t be some point in this vein, actually — and I’ll take that as a positive. So long as the material isn’t completely outside their interests, when is a filmmaker stepping outside the bounds so bad? After The Kids Are All Right, any change brought on by November Criminals is all the more welcome.

Judging by this information, is there any promise in Cholodenko going with this project?